


(the use of) nostalgia (for what didn't happen)

by ObscureReference



Series: Rarepair Friday Fics [8]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F, Ghosts, M/M, Non-Canonical Character Death, Past Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 04:35:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6890428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObscureReference/pseuds/ObscureReference
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jenny's focus flickered between her wife and her dog. Mandy stood with her back to the kitchen door, her vision completely transfixed to Chelsea. When Jenny looked really close, she could swear that Chelsea's fur was... moving. Like somebody was running their hands through it.</p>
<p>"Um," Mandy said, making a disgruntled face. "Can you not?"</p>
<p> </p>
<p>aka, the one where Ransom is the ghost haunting Jenny and Mandy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(the use of) nostalgia (for what didn't happen)

**Author's Note:**

> For the Rarepair Friday prompt: "minementis said: Jenny/Mandy: AU where Jenny and Mandy are alive and married and Ransom is the ghost that haunts them. idk where I was going with this but maybe they tell their tall blond neighbour about it and ‘Adam’ helps them do a seance or something. I feel like Jenny and Mandy would own a border collie dog they adopted"
> 
> The title is a reference to how Ransom is the ghost this time and how Jenny and Mandy are the ones alive. It's taken from a Welcome To Night Vale quote from episode 73: "I wish things could have gone differently, obviously. That is, obviously, what I wish. But they didn’t. What is the use of nostalgia for what didn’t happen when we have to live with what did?"

The front door opened, and Mandy wandered in just as Jenny was pulling the spaghetti off the stove. Almost immediately, their border collie sprinted over to Mandy, jumping on her legs and barking up a storm. She thankfully wasn't terribly tall just yet, and Mandy easily stepped over her. She leaned down to pet the dog once she was out of the doorway.  

Maybe it hadn't been a fantastic idea to adopt a dog as they were moving, but Jenny hadn't had any regrets about it yet, even if Chelsea did nearly bowl them over every time they walked inside. It just meant she had a lot of love she was excited to share.

"Hey, honey," Jenny said above the noise, draining the hot water into the sink. "How was work?"

"Long," Mandy said. She rubbed Chelsea's fur with one hand and set her bag on the table by the entrance with the other. "Mrs. Reeves is trying to sue her neighbor over that tree in her yard again. It's still not her property. What about you?"

Jenny still couldn't believe Mrs. Reeves had followed Mandy from one firm to another. That lady would _not_ give up that pear tree. "I took pictures of a baby shower today."

"Were there any babies?"

"No." Jenny pouted. "Just pregnant ladies."

"Boo."

Jenny agreed. She loved babies. They were so _cute._

Mandy disappeared around a corner, and Jenny could hear her shuffling around in the living room. Dinner was almost ready, so she got ready to call her wife back over.

Jenny didn't cook that often. Usually, she and Mandy took turns depending on who got home first, but both of them despised cooking enough that they ate takeout more often than not. But the Turners from up the street were vegetarians and they always looked super refreshed when Jenny saw them walking their dog, so she figured they might as well try something not dripping in grease for once. They wouldn't maintain their slim figures forever.

Pasta maybe wasn't the best meal choice, calorie-wise. Exercise was out of the option, though, since the gym was too far away since the move and Jenny didn't like the idea of running down the street and getting sweaty where everyone could see. It was embarrassing enough when Mandy saw.

Mandy's voice rang out from the other room, nervous and confused all at once.

"Jen?"

Jenny poured the sauce onto the noodles without looking up. "Yes?"

"Can Chelsea fly?"

Jenny paused. She set the jar of marinara sauce back on the counter.

"What?" she asked loudly. When Mandy didn't respond immediately, she walked swiftly into the living room. She froze in the doorway.

Chelsea was floating in midair, completely level with Mandy's chest. Her feet were carefully tucked against her body, and she didn't look at all nervous to be suddenly defying the laws of gravity. In fact, she looked rather pleased. She wagged her tail furiously as Jenny entered the room.

Jenny blinked. Her dog was still floating several feet off the ground.

"Hey, Mandy?" she whispered nervously. Mandy didn't look at her.

"Hmm?"

"Is Chelsea flying?"

"Mm-hmm."

Jenny's focus flickered between her wife and her dog. Mandy stood with her back to the kitchen door, her vision completely transfixed to Chelsea. When Jenny looked really close, she could swear that Chelsea's fur was... moving. Like somebody was running their hands through it.

"Um," Mandy said, making a disgruntled face. "Can you not?"

Somehow, that seemed to do the trick. Chelsea began to lower to the ground like someone was cradling her to their chest and slowly kneeling. Chelsea's paws made gentle contact with the hardwood flooring, and Chelsea herself barked in delight. She wagged her tail and jumped happily at empty space.

There was definitely a perimeter to where she moved, Jenny noted. Like she was circling a person they couldn't see.

"Thanks," she said. Because she might as well not be ungrateful to the mysterious force that chose to be kind to her dog.

Mandy scooped Chelsea up and snagged Jenny's arm, pulling all three of them back into the kitchen.

 

 

 

"Why didn't you tell me we were haunted?" Mandy asked over a now cold bowl of spaghetti. She was frowning into her dinner, and Jenny frowned along with her.

"I didn't _know_ ," she protested.

It was true; Jenny hadn't _known_ they were haunted. Though to be fair, she probably should have guessed. She was the one home more often since her photography gig gave her more flexible hours than Mandy's career as a lawyer. But the few times she'd walked in the house to find the TV already playing _Gilmore Girls_ or had found the computer opened to old clips from hockey highlights and medical shows had been so _easy_ to brush off. She just assumed they always forgot to turn off the computer and autoplay did the rest. How was she supposed to guess they had a ghost?

Unless they secretly had some living invisible person in their home, in which case, Not Cool. A ghost was a much better alternative. Ghosts didn't have a choice to what place they haunted after death. A real person living in their attic or something was just creepy.

Jenny's frown deepened. At least, she didn't _think_ they had a choice. She wasn't up to date on all her ghost rules.

Either way, she didn't think she was to blame for not knowing. She told Mandy that.

"Yeah," Mandy sighed. "You're right. But, like, what're we going to do?"

Mandy had a totally professional lawyer voice she used when she was in the courtroom. Here at home, however, questioning the basis of reality, she sounded eighteen again. It brought back old memories and left warm butterflies in Jenny's stomach. It was enough to at least somewhat lift the mood.

"Do we have to do anything?" Jenny asked.

"What do you mean?"

Jenny shrugged. "Like, it hasn't hurt anybody, right? So maybe it's a friendly ghost. Why would anybody want to hurt Casper?"

Mandy thought about it.

"I guess you're right," she said. "I mean, Chelsea flying was kind of scary, but she looked like she liked it."

As if she understood the question, Chelsea let out a soft, "Boof." Mandy and Jenny both reached down to scratch her head.

"Should we be talking to the ghost too?" Jenny questioned. "If we're assuming they're a nice ghost. Shouldn't they get a say if they're going to live here?"

Mandy hummed. "Isn't that bad though? You're not supposed to acknowledge a ghost or demon or whatever when they live in your home. That gives them strength or something. I saw that on _A Haunting_ once."

If anybody TV program knew what it was talking about, it was probably _A Haunting._ Or so Jenny assumed. Mandy loved that kind of spooky stuff, but Jenny usually left the room when it was on or cuddled up under Mandy's arm while it played in the background. She preferred comedies by far.

"We're already talking about it," Jenny pointed out.

"Yeah, I guess we are," Mandy said. There was a brief pause, then she straightened in her chair. In what Jenny recognized as her Lawyer Voice, she said "Ghost! We would like to speak with you."

Nothing happened. No extra cool breeze, no fallen picture frame. Jenny figured that stuff might only happen in the movies. Or maybe their ghost was just extra nice.

"They're invisible,"  she reminded her wife.

"I know," Mandy said. To the room, she added, "Are you a nice ghost like Casper? Or are you evil?"

Mandy always liked to get to the heart of the matter like that. There was no use beating around the bush when they could just get an answer from the start.

For a moment, nothing continued to happen. Then the notepad on the kitchen counter flipped to a fresh page and Jenny watched as the pen next to it began to write by itself.

"That's so cool," she said, because it was true.

Mandy nodded. She stood up and walked over to the counter.

"It says they're a nice ghost," she told Jenny, looking at the paper. To the ghost, she asked,  "Do you have a name? Something we should call you by? A preferred pronoun?"

The pen scratched against the paper. Jenny waited at the table while Mandy made a face.

"You have really bad handwriting," Mandy said. It took Jenny a moment to remember she wasn't talking to anyone living.

Jenny stood up and peered over the counter. The writing really did look like chicken scratch. It reminded her of notes she got from the doctor.

"Ask them if they're an alien from the fourth dimension," Jenny said. She was no idiot. She had seen _Interstellar_ just like everyone else.

Mandy snorted. The pen fell back on the counter.

"What's it say?" Jenny asked.

"It says his name is Justin and that he loves Chelsea," Mandy said. "And that he is definitely a ghost and not an alien."

"That sounds like something an alien would say." And _duh_. Who wouldn't love Chelsea?

Mandy shrugged. "What would someone who was _not_ an alien say?"

Touché. Jenny didn't have an answer for that one.

Mandy picked up the pad from the counter and turned it over in her hands for a long moment, inspecting it. Whatever she saw must have pleased her because she dropped it right back on the counter.

"That's good enough for me," she said.

"Wait, that's it?" Jenny stepped closer. "You aren't going to interrogate him or anything? What if he's lying?"

The suggestion that their ghost was a good one had seemed nice at the time, but Jenny wasn't sure they should just _assume_ that was true based on the word of a _ghost_. That ghost could be saving their own skin.

Lack of skin. Whatever.

Mandy reached for Jenny's hand and intertwined their fingers.

"He likes dogs, Jen," she said. "How evil can he be?"

She had a point.

 

 

 

And so Mandy and Jenny continued living with their roommate the ghost. Justin.

It wasn't any different from living with a regular roommate, Jenny supposed. Except not as awful because he didn't leave out any food and he never seemed to be around when she and Mandy made out on the couch over their delivery pizza.

Sometimes, Jenny or Mandy would go to work and forget to turn off the coffee machine or let Chelsea out before they left, and then they had to drive all the way back home to make sure there were no accidents. But every time something like that happened, they came back home to find everything in its place and Chelsea happily curled up in her dog bed. Eventually, they got used to it.

It was pretty ideal, actually.

Still, having an invisible roommate meant he was _invisible._ As in, _not able to be seen_. Jenny didn't think she could be blamed when it turned out to be otherwise.

"Thanks for the help," Jenny said, grocery bags in one hand and holding the front door open with the other. "You didn't have to do this."

"It's no problem," Adam said. Her neighbor. Young, blond, athletic. Possibly her type if this had been ten years ago and Jenny wasn't happily married. Still, he had a nice smile. "I'm happy to help."

Jenny set the groceries on the counter.

"Still, I appreciate—Oh!"

She could see into the living room from the kitchen doorway, and there was very clearly a man sitting on her couch where a man shouldn't have been.

Adam frowned. "Are you okay?"

He followed Jenny's line of sight and peered through the doorway. He paused.

"Should he," Adam said slowly. "Look like that?"

No, Jenny thought. Not at all.

Once she got over the initial shock of seeing a stranger on her couch, she realized the stranger was rather paler than his apparent skin tone would suggest. He looked rather see-through. Transparent. Ghastly.  

Ghostly.

"Oh," she said. "Justin."

At the sound of his name, Justin turned his head. He stiffened upon spotting them. Jenny smiled. Adam waved.

Justin disappeared.

"Oh," Jenny said again. "Okay, I guess."

Adam glanced rapidly between the couch and the door. "Uh."

Jenny waved her hand.

"That's just Justin, our ghost," she said. "Thanks again for your help. I really appreciate it."

"Yeah," Adam said, distracted. He let Jenny shove him toward the door. "No problem."

Jenny shut the door behind him, then sighed. Who knew they had a shy ghost?

 

 

 

"I'm not really that shy," Justin said the next time Jenny saw him in the corporeal. Mandy next to her. "It just takes a lot of energy, so I can't do this all the time."

"You made yourself a body so you could watch TV?" Many asked, raising her eyebrows skeptically.

Justin shrugged. "Not really. You guys were pretty cool, though, so I thought I should probably talk to you without the pen and paper thing. I didn't think you'd freak out if you saw me, and death is kind of boring."

The pieces were starting to come together. Justin had been waiting on them to get home.

"And then Adam walked in," Jenny guessed.

Mandy nodded. "And you didn't expect it."

"Pretty much," Justin agreed.

Then he smiled, scratching the back of his head nervously even though he didn't have any real skin to scratch. He was cute despite the fact she could see the picture frame on the wall behind Justin through his skull.

He looked so _young_ , she thought. Painfully young. She wondered how he died but didn't ask out of fear of making things awkward. She couldn't imagine how terrible it would be to die so young and remain trapped in one place forever. It sounded awful.

Wait. Was he even trapped in the first place?

"Kind of?" Justin said when she asked. "Like, I can't leave the area, but I can wander around the neighborhood if I want."

"Do you do that often?" Mandy asked.

"Not really. I don't really want to invade other people's privacy without their permission. I try to stay out of your way as much as I can."

"We noticed you were refilling Chelsea's water bowl and taking her out and stuff," Jenny said. "Thanks."

"It's no problem," Justin said, waving his hand. His limbs were the least solid of the rest of him. "I love dogs."

"Is there anything we can do for you?" Mandy offered. "Like, you're dead and all, but you can still hang with us whenever you want. You said death was pretty boring, after all."

Justin seemed to think about it.

"Do you have any new movies?" he finally asked. "I haven't been able to go to the theater in _forever._ "

 

 

 

The third day after Adam helped with the groceries and Jenny pushed him out, he knocked on the front door. This time, Mandy answered it.

Jenny couldn't hear what was being said. She was too busy throwing popcorn across the room and watching Justin catch it in his mouth. He argued that it totally still counted as a win even when it fell through his stomach and onto the floor. Chelsea ate up the leftovers anyway, so it was really a win-win situation.

Then Mandy wandered back in, Adam on her heels.

Everyone froze. Chelsea included.

"Hey," Adam greeted, seemingly unaffected by the sight of the ghost in the living room.

"Uh," Justin said.

Jenny threw another piece of popcorn and watched it sail right through Justin's chest. Chelsea lapped it up off the floor.

"Cool," Adam said.

Off to the side, Mandy looked suspiciously smug.

 

 

 

"Justin!" Jenny called. "Justin!"

No response. Even on days when he couldn't bother to manifest himself, Justin almost always acknowledged her by nudging a cup out of place or something. Jenny had picked up a movie from the store today and she wanted to tell him they'd have a movie night tonight.

"Justin!"                                 

"He's not here," Mandy said, walking by with a basket of laundry. Jenny paused.

"Not here?" she repeated. She followed Mandy into the bedroom. Mandy dropped the basket on their bed.

"Yep," Mandy said. "He's visiting Adam."

She caught Jenny's eye and paused, a rumpled shirt caught in her hand. Both of their faces split into huge grins.

"Oh my gosh, that's so great!" Jenny cheered. Justin needed a friend besides them so _badly_. He deserved a larger social group than a thirty year old photographer and her wife. Dog included. She could feel the relief in her chest so much it ached.

Mandy threw her arms around Jenny's neck, laundry still in hand. "I _know_. God, I hope they become besties for life."

"For death," Jenny countered.

"That too."

Jenny made a note to interrogate the hell out of Justin when he got back. She hoped he had fun while he was out. He deserved it.

 

 

 

"He has, like, eight _thousand_ rom-coms on DVD," Justin said. "And his iPhone playlist is like seven Adele albums."

"Is he any good though?" Many asked, not looking up from the paper spread out in front of her. She was wearing her pair of Professional Glasses that she said made her look like a librarian but that Jenny thought were kind of cute. In a librarian way.

Justin paused. "He's not bad."

That meant he was good.

 

 

 

"Should we be, like, helping you somehow?" Jenny asked once, resting her head in her hands at the kitchen table. "Like, we're not keeping you trapped here, are we?"

Sunlight was streaming through the kitchen window. It fell through Justin like he wasn't even there.

"No," Justin said. "I'm here for... something, I guess. I'll figure it out."

They sat in silence the rest of the day.

 

 

 

Justin came home looking suspiciously lively for someone with no physical body and no blood to cause a blush. Mandy and Jenny had jumped on him immediately.

"Did you guys talk about something deep?" Mandy asked.

"No," Justin said, not meeting their eyes.

"Did you confess something really embarrassing?" Jenny prodded. She would have poked Justin in the arm if she could have.

"No."

"What, he didn't hit on you or something, did he?" Mandy joked. But as soon as the words left her mouth, Justin pulled a _face._ And they all knew what that meant.

"He totally did!" Jenny squealed. "Adam hit on you! Oh! Oh!"

"You guys are the same age, right?" Mandy said, squinting at Justin's face. "You don't act that old. I bet you guys are the same age. It could work."

Justin grumbled something and disappeared. Jenny figured he wasn't _too_ mad. She caught him invisibly running his fingers through Chelsea's fur a few minutes later, anyway. She let him be.

Ah, to be young and in love.

 

 

 

"We're probably older than you," Mandy insisted. "When did you die? I bet I was born before you."

Justin eyed her. "That doesn't make you my parents."

"You live under our roof, young man," she said. "And I'm going to make sure this boy has good intentions."

"It's physically impossible for us to touch each other," Justin said, but Jenny thought he sounded a little amused under his protesting. She stifled her smile and waited by the door.

"He better wear something _nice_ ," Mandy said. "No son of mine is going to date a slob."

"He'll wear something nice," Justin said. Jenny pretended not to notice that he'd stopped objecting to the rest.

The doorbell rang.

**Author's Note:**

> I started going down a weirdly sad route at one point with this fic but I wasn't sure how/if I wanted to follow up and resolve Ransom being a ghost, so I chose not to. Maybe there will be more some day where I do that. Maybe not. 
> 
> I keep my other rarepair fics that I feel are too short to post here over on my tumblr (http://someobscurereference.tumblr.com/) under the "rarepair friday fics" tag. Feel free to leave a comment below or hmu there! <3.


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